


in previous lives (in previous times)

by Steerpike13713



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Character Turned Into a Human, Episode: s04e07 The Initiative, Gen, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 15:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14897541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steerpike13713/pseuds/Steerpike13713
Summary: In 1880, William Pratt wandered into an alley and was accosted by a vaguely oracular urchin.In 1999, William wakes up in the custody of the Initiative, an ocean away from where he's supposed to be, with no memory of the past century of his immortal existence.Something is very wrong here.





	in previous lives (in previous times)

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted a while back to write something where Spike's treatment at the hands of the Initiative is something other than the chip, and I've always liked WIlliam as a character, so, here goes.  
> Regrettably, Buffy and the gang are suspicious and pissed off enough at Spike here that they don't come off brilliantly, but considering how soon after the Ring of Amara this is, I'd say they have cause.

William didn’t know where he was or what he was doing there, but already he was fairly certain that he would not like the answers at all when he had them. He had awoken to find himself here, in this bare white tiled room with the drain in the floor and an odd scent in the air that he couldn’t quite place, not for the life of him. One wall was clear – glass, he thought, like a tank. He’d tried calling out to the men in white coats who passed by, but to no avail, and when he tried tapping the glass it sent a wave of pain flooding through him like nothing he had ever felt in all his life. If he had been struck by lightning, he thought muzzily, pulling himself back to his feet, it would have felt like that. He reached up to scrub a hand through his curls, but they were no longer there. Instead, his hand found stiff, oddly waxy hair under its fingers, and he frowned. He’d never been much of a one for pomades, as they inevitably only made him look sillier, and after the last time he’d attended a party with his hair slicked back only to have to listen to Cecily’s gleeful mockery of his resemblance to a drowned rat he highly doubted he’d ever want to go near the wretched stuff again.

But how had he come to be here? He frowned, rubbing a hand over his face. He’d been at another party, though he hadn’t wanted to go, not really. Parties never held anything for him but more mockery, and he got enough of that as it was. His poetry had been rejected by yet another publishing-house, and it was only the comic nonsense he wrote for _Punch_ that had allowed him to pay for his mother’s medicines last month. But Cecily had been there, and she had asked him to come, and for a few glittering moments William had thought she really did care for him, until the truth had come out. Beneath her, she had called him...he waited for the expected shame, the certain knowledge that she was right, that he was nothing, that he had been a fool to think she would even deign to spit on him. It didn’t come. Instead, a wellspring of fury seemed to have bubbled up within him, unlike anything he’d known before. She’d invited him just so she could make a mock of him, so she and her parasitic friends could laugh at the poor tradesman’s son and would-be poet whose scribblings were all that kept him and his mother from the gutter. For a moment, the rage blazed white-hot beneath his skin, and if Cecily had been before him he’d have forgotten good form, forgotten a lifetime’s education telling him that only the most despicable of men would strike a woman, and wrung her neck for her then and there. It frightened him, the depths of that anger, and he turned his mind away from- from _her_. Even thinking her name made the rage well up again, and if it did William didn’t know if he’d be able to restrain it.

What had come next? Next, he had been in the street, making his way home on foot and trying to hide his tears. He’d torn the poem he’d written her to shreds, and felt really very sorry for himself, and then the girl had appeared, the urchin. He’d felt sorry for her at first, the mad little thing in her fine gown and muffler, who had slipped her caretakers somewhere and wandered off into the London night. He hadn’t known quite what to do with her. He could not in good conscience leave her, out in the street with no protection, no chaperone, but if he were to take her back to her guardians, they might assume he had compromised her, and that would only bring down more troubles on his head and his mother’s. When she’d moved closer, he’d scrambled away, babbling some infernal nonsense about pickpockets – as if anyone would ever take this strange, richly-dressed girl-child for one of them – but then she’d started talking again, and something in her words had been…he shook his head. _You walk in worlds the others can’t begin to imagine,_ her voice whispered once again through his mind. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought. It was pointless, it really was- But then, he realised, he could not remember anything after that. She’d asked him if he wanted that, that promise, that effulgent, glorious wisp of inspiration, there for a moment and then gone again. Then there had been nothing but pain and darkness, and he’d woken up here. Had she been the lure, then? The thing these- these people had used to lure him in? Or was she captive here too? Before he could think on it any further, however, there was an odd sort of clattering noise from behind him and he turned, to see an odd bag of some dark liquid dropping from the ceiling to land with a soft thump. He frowned, and picked it up. It smelt odd, at once alluring and repellent, and he tried to tear it open, only for wet, hot blood to spill out onto his hands. He dropped it, horrified, starting backward, waiting for the rush of queasiness he always got at the sight, but it didn’t come.

“Don’t drink it!” came a cry from the next cell.

William stared around, “Why in the world would I want to do that?” he demanded. “Who are you?”

An odd, hysteric sound, not quite a laugh or a sob, emanated from the next cell, “Name’s Len. Len Roscoe. Don’t know what I’m doing here. Was just on my way home from the Bronze when this bunch of freaky-looking guys jumped on me, and then I woke up here.”

“That, at least, we would appear to have in common,” William remarked, more acidly than he had ever dared outside his own head. “Have- Have you been here long?”

“Just a couple days,” Roscoe replied, that odd, half-hysteric note to his voice. “You a Brit or something? You talk kinda funny.”

William frowned. “I’m English, yes,” he admitted warily, “Am I to take it that I am no longer within the bounds of the British Empire?”

“You what?” there was the sound of footsteps, “There’s not been a British Empire in centuries. Well, at least one of them, anyway.”

William froze. “Er…I beg your pardon?” he tried, except, no, that wasn’t right. Only parvenus said ‘pardon’, Cecily said- He forced his thoughts away with difficulty. “I don’t know what you mean,” he settled on at last.

“Well, it’s the twentieth century, isn’t it? Nearly the twenty-first. Hasn’t been a British Empire since I don’t know when.”

William very nearly keeled over. “The- the twentieth century,” he repeated, “The _end_ of the twentieth century?” It couldn’t be true. This was something out of a sensation novel, it wasn’t supposed to happen in real life. “This isn’t- That can’t be-”

“Well, when do you think it is, then?” Roscoe demanded. “Jesus, you don’t think- Are they resurrecting people or something?”

William started. “What would give you that idea?”

“Well, the others,” Roscoe said, “In the cells farther along. They all talked funny too. One of them thought it was 1952. Said he’d been knifed and some woman asked him if he wanted to live. What if that’s what they’re doing?”

William frowned. “So, how do you know it’s the twentieth century?” he asked. “This might all be some sort of…misunderstanding?” he shook his head, bewildered. “No, it can’t be. Who would…” it sounded like one of his pieces for _Punch_ , it was so absurd. He shook his head, thinking. “We have to get out of this place,” he said. Who was it who had said that the only truly original thought it was possible to have in an institution was how to get out? Whoever they were, it wasn’t exactly encouraging. “Do you know anywhere…” he glanced down, trying to see if there was anything in his pockets that might help, and started. “What the devil!” His clothes were gone, replaced by strange, rough garments, more like a workman’s attire than anything really suitable for a gentleman. They were more comfortable than anything he’d ever worn before, but the very thought of venturing out in public dressed like this…well, he would just have to bear it, and hope that his mother never got wind of this. He refused to believe that a century had gone by, that she was in all probability already dead, the consumption having claimed her long ago, her only son already dead. Then, his eyes widened.

“Have you ever read _The Count of Monte Cristo_?” he asked. Mother had never approved of his taste for French novels, but he was grateful for it now.

“You what?”

William smiled, trying to appear more confident than he felt. “I think,” he said, “I may have a plan in mind. How do these cells open?”

“What?”

“The cells,” William repeated, “Is there a way of opening them from the outside?” There should be, logically, but if these were meant to hold them indefinitely he couldn’t be certain. Who knew, after all, what these strange people were capable of?

“Yeah, yeah, there’s a way. They take us out for the experiments – moment you’re desperate enough to drink one of them packets, they knock you out and drag you off.”

William frowned. That was an unforeseen complication. “And they experiment on the bodies?” he asked. He’d never been much of a planner, in writing or in life. He always got bored too quickly whenever he tried. Now, though, with nothing else to do, it seemed as though both their lives depended on his ability to plan. “Is there any way of getting away before they start the experiments?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen. Could fight, I suppose, but so far everyone’s been drugged too far out of their skulls to try it.”

William rubbed a hand across his head, hating the unfamiliar feeling of it beneath his fingers, and frowned. “Ah.” He’d never been much of a fighter. There had been boxing lessons during his schooldays, but he had never done well in them. He was always doing the wrong thing, and had been the despair of his masters and the whipping-boy of his peers all through his time at Rugby. At Oxford, afterwards, things had been little better. He didn’t like his chances if it came to a physical fight. But the alternative was to stay and starve in his cell. Didn’t they say a quick death was kinder? William had never seen anyone die before, but he had watched his mother growing frailer and frailer as the consumption pressed upon her. Was starving like that? He shook his head. “I can’t see any other solution to our current dilemma, I’m afraid,” he said, and wondered at the steadiness of his own voice. “Now, how do the cells open? Is there a key? Do they carry all of them together?”

“No- Key cards. All the doctors have them.”

“Doctors?” William looked around, “This doesn’t look like Bedlam.” He had been to Bedlam, once or twice, as a boy. It had frightened him, the men in the cages there, the gibbering and drooling and screaming of the lunatics in their cells. The other boys had laughed and thrown things, but all William could remember of those visits was horror. His father, of course, had despised him for his weakness, but William had been used enough to that. “I don’t suppose it matters,” he said at last. He moved over to the broken packet, which had spilt some of its contents already on the floor and, very carefully, nudged it with his foot until it was over the drain, stooping to pick it up with his back to the clear wall. Then, bracing himself against the pain, he slumped against the back wall, sliding down to lie face-up on the floor, eyes closed. It was only than that he realised that he wasn’t breathing. _Why wasn’t he breathing?_ Was Roscoe right? Was this all some madman’s attempt to play God and bring back the dead from their well-earned peace? He thought of the Romantics, Mary Shelley, and had to suppress a shudder lest it give him away. What had been done to him already, while he was unconscious? He heard footsteps nearby, and tried to force his limbs into pliancy, willing himself to be still. Ungentle hands lifted him by the shoulders. There would be no better time. He struck. The blow to the throat which made the first of the two men double over would have won William no praise if this had been only another boxing lesson, but William was fighting for his life now. He sent the man sprawling into the back wall, his head knocking hard against the tiles, and slammed the other man up against the wall with a strength he had not known he possessed, his hands locked about the doctor’s throat. The man went limp in seconds, and William dropped him, horrified. No, the card, he had to get the card- He rummaged through the man’s white coat, found an odd rectangle of some material he didn’t know that looked almost nothing like a visiting card, and dashed out of the cell, letting the glass wall slide closed behind him.

Roscoe, an ugly man with dark-rimmed eyes and an oddly bestial edge to his appearance, dressed in the same sort of rough workman’s clothes that William had woken in, was staring at him now.

“What should I do with this?” William demanded, holding up the card.

“Swipe it, through the locks,” Roscoe replied, pointing at the odd little metal contraption, all over buttons, that was mounted on the cell door. William nodded, and darted over to the- well, he supposed it was a lock. There was a narrow groove on the far side. He glanced down at the card, and held it between two fingers, some instinct, like a memory from a dream, urging him to run it through that groove. Fingers shaking, he did so, and watched as Roscoe’s cell wall slid aside.

“Incredible,” he murmured, but there was no time for wondering. A loud wailing noise echoed through the corridor, and Roscoe grabbed William’s sleeve.

“This way!” he hissed, half-dragging William after him. There was a metal screen descending over the door, and William hadn’t thought he’d be able to slip through it, but somehow they were in the corridor and running again.  More metal screens were descending now, over the doors, forcing them right, and then another set of metal screens slid apart to reveal a group of men, heavily-armed and armoured in no way William could recognise. He veered sharply, shouting at Roscoe to come _on_ , knowing that there was no way that they could survive this should it come to a fight. There was an odd noise behind him, and William glanced around, to see Roscoe, the end of what looked almost like a wooden picket, polished to a mirror gleam, sticking out of his chest. As William watched, Roscoe’s body seemed to melt away, going from flesh and blood and bone to just a handful of dry dust. For a moment, he stood there, horror-struck, but it didn’t take more than a moment for him to remember himself and throw himself backwards through another door before the screen could slide over it. There were two more men there when he was through, but the rage that had been building in William since he had remembered Cecily’s rejection, the mockery she had made of him, seemed suddenly to bubble to a head. When the first of the men swung at him, William dodged away, kicking the man’s feet out from under him and scrambling back to his feet. The next man had more sense than his friend had done, but not by much. He came in armed, with another of the pickets that had killed Roscoe. William twisted his wrist away, exulting in the _crack_ and whimper of pain that followed. This was right, this was _wonderful_ , this was everything effulgent and glorious and _alive_ that boarding-school boxing lessons never had been. Within moments, the two men were lying groaning on the floor, and William was running again, bubbling over with a sort of exhilarated joy he had never known before. It was fire and blood and exultation running hot just beneath his skin, it was everything he had ever longed for and everything he had ever feared.

He kept running until he broke into fresh air, a balmy evening quite unlike they grey April in London he remembered, and stared around, momentarily dumbstruck, and quite unable to find his bearings. He wandered away from the opening, not quite sure which way he was going, only that he had to get as far away from that prison and those who ran it as it was possible to be. Eventually, he found a bench and sat down, feeling in the pockets of the enormous leather coat he had woken in to see if there was anything in it that might give him any indication of where he was or where he could go from here. One thing that was quite clear now was that he was not in London. There were a few unfamiliar coins, a crumpled green paper bill with ‘United States of America’ written on it – money, or so William presumed. American money, which, he supposed, meant he was in America. God in heaven, what must his mother be thinking? That he had run off and abandoned her, he supposed. He could not bring himself to believe Roscoe’s wild story. He was all she had, he knew. Who would care for her if not him? She’d been so weak lately that it was all she could do to rise from her bed. What must her last hours have been like if Roscoe had been telling the truth? He hadn’t been, he couldn’t have been- And yet, the more William saw, the more certain he became that, whatever was happening, he had no sensible explanation for it. He was alone, in a foreign country, having just escaped from he knew not what at the hands of he knew not who. Where could he go? Who could he tell? He had only the clothes he stood up in, and no way to pay for his passage home to London. His rummaging finally bore fruit, in the form of a slip of paper, barely an inch wide, on which was scribbled ‘Buffy Summers, ring of Amara’ and the beginning of another word which had been torn so that very little of it could be made out. William stared down at it, frowning. He was quite sure that ‘Buffy’ could not be a real name. Maybe a nickname? More than half the boys at Rugby had had some form of nickname, complimentary or otherwise, and his mother had mentioned a ‘Bunty’ and a ‘Bunny’ from her own schooldays before, when the laudanum left her wits wandering and she could not recognise William’s face. He racked his brains, trying to remember if there was a ‘Buffy’ amongst them, but came up blank. There was nothing for it; he would simply have to ask.

He stood up, glanced around, and felt a hot rush of shame as he noticed the group of giggling girls on the far side of the quadrangle of grass where he was currently sitting. They were dressed in the most obscene fashion William had ever seen, their ankles, calves, even their knees laid bare to the heat of the evening. And yet, they did not seem to be soliciting for trade and no-one appeared to notice anything out of the ordinary about them. Was this simply their custom, then? William had heard that the American west was uncivilised, more than half wild still, but this had not been what he imagined when he had heard as much.

“Ah, excuse me?” he asked, approaching the most modestly dressed of the six young ladies gathered under a spreading tree, “I was wondering, could you please tell me where to find,” he glanced down at the paper and frowned, “Buffy Summers,” he repeated, frowning.

The girl, who had at first looked hopeful, seemed slightly downcast. “Buffy Summers?” she repeated, and nodded in the direction of another building across the quadrangle, “Her room’s in that building. Number 214,” she smiled at him, revealing startlingly white, even teeth.

“Thank you,” William replied, ducking his head slightly, “Excuse me.”

The giggling resumed, louder, accompanied by whispering, and William hunched his shoulders slightly, imagining the mockery they were engaging in right behind his back. He trudged on, keeping his head down, glad that whatever it was had been done to him seemed to keep him from blushing. Room 214 wasn’t hard to find. He knocked gingerly at the door, and a young woman’s voice called. “Come in.”

William swallowed, and pushed the door open cautiously. “Miss Summers?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and level. “Forgive me for the intrusion-”

That, however, was about as far as he got, as the red-haired girl on the bed had scrambled to her feet and looked, frankly, terrified. “Spike,” she said, and there was panic in her voice. She pressed herself back against the chest-of-drawers, her eyes wide and fearful, groping with one hand for William knew not what.  “What do you want? A spell? I can do that…”

“I beg your pardon?” he said gently, “I- I didn’t mean to startle you.” He frowned at the look on the girl’s face. “You are Miss Summers? I’m afraid I don’t know your Christian name.”

“I’m Jewish,” the girl replied, almost reflexively, and then frowned. “Wait…why are you acting like this?”

William blinked. “I’m sorry?” he tried.

“That!” the girl repeated, starting back, “That right there! Y- You were- You were being _polite_!”

“Is that so very unusual?” William asked. He’d heard that the colonies could be barbaric, but not so much so that simple, everyday courtesies would elicit this sort of a response.

The girl frowned at him. “From you it is,” she said, still feeling around for something. “What is it- Why are you here?”

William stared at her, in a state of greater confusion than he had ever known before. “You must forgive me,” he said, “But I don’t recall that we’ve ever met before, have we?” What had she called him, when he first entered the room? Another nickname, he thought, but not one he had ever been called before, he didn’t think. He looked around, finally noticing how very odd this little room was. “May I sit?” he asked, “I’ve had a rather trying evening, and this may take some time to explain.”

The girl stared at him. “What- You want to-” she wrinkled her nose, frowning, resembling nothing so much in that moment as the ginger kitten William had owned when he was about ten or eleven, before his father had got wind of it. “What-?”

William looked about for a chair, and pulled one away from the desk by the door, sitting down gingerly. He moved to push his glasses up his nose, but they weren’t there. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? William’s eyesight had been the despair of every master he ever had when he was a schoolboy. How could this have happened? He shook his head, and looked up at the girl.

“I, ah, remember I never did get the chance to introduce myself properly,” he said awkwardly, smiling at her and resisting the urge to brush a hand over his head, which still felt strange and stiff in a way he had never felt before, even on that one disastrous occasion where he had experimented with pomades to try and impress Cecily. “My name is William Pratt.” He couldn’t quite suppress a wince at that, waiting for the mockery, but somehow it never came. He hurried on, “And you are Miss Summers? I presume ‘Buffy’ is not your given name.”

The girl stared at him. “What-? But you know I’m not Buffy, I’m Willow. Willow Rosenberg – you know me, don’t- don’t you?”

“I think I would remember if we had been introduced,” William replied, trying not to fidget and failing miserably. He took a deep breath. “This may sound quite improbable,” he admitted, “Truth be told, I am having some difficulty believing it myself. It sounds like something Stevenson would write, but…” he glanced down at his hands. “I find I can no longer persuade myself it isn’t happening.”

“Can’t persuade yourself what isn’t happening?” Miss Rosenberg asked, cocking her head slightly to one side. William paused for a moment, marshalling his thoughts, and then explained everything. He skirted as delicately as he could over the events that had led up to his being in that London alleyway, and then the cells, the escape, finding his way here. Even now, re-telling it, he couldn’t quite believe the events he described. So it came as no real surprise when he looked up and saw naked disbelief in Miss Rosenberg’s face. “Believe me,” he said, smiling ruefully, “I know exactly how absurd this sounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up in Bedlam for even saying it aloud, but,” he spread his hands out before him. “What else can I do?”

Miss Rosenberg frowned. “So, if you don’t remember anything, why come here?” she asked, drawing her knees up to her chest.

“I don’t know,” William admitted, “I was- I had hoped that-” he shook his head. “I had no other indication of where to go, and no resources with which to get there. I have to my name,” he said wryly, “Nothing but the rather ridiculous clothes I stand up in.”

That, of all things, actually elicited a smile from the girl. William smiled back, and then glanced around sharply, realising all at once where he was. He was alone, in the bedroom of a young lady, quite unchaperoned. “It- That is to say,” he stammered, glancing around, as if he were afraid his old schoolmaster would spring from behind a wardrobe and launch into a tirade about impropriety worse even than that one time Leighton and Pierce Minor had been caught in gross indecency when William was fourteen. They had both been expelled, and the headmaster’s furious voice still echoed in William’s ears every time he glanced at a handsome man, even just for an instant.

“What are you doing?” Miss Rosenberg asked, frowning.

William shook his head, “I’m in your room- It’s- I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”

“Wait. You’re…you said you thought it was the nineteenth century, right?” Miss Rosenberg smiled at him, a little warily, but less so than before. “This would be kinda scandalous then, right?”

“Just so,” William replied, “I- Thank you for believing me, Miss Rosenberg. I know it must sound ridiculous.”

Miss Rosenberg shrugged. “I’ve seen a lot of ridiculous these last couple of years.”

Of course, it was then that the lights flickered off, and the night outside was filled with the sound of screaming.

William startled as the lights flickered out. “Is this-” he started, but Miss Rosenberg had gone the sickly greyish-white of day-old porridge.

“Something’s wrong,” she mumbled, “Buffy must’ve- Something must-” there was another scream from outside, and the sound of heavy, booted footsteps, and William knew what it must be.

“They’ve found me,” he said, “Miss Rosenberg, I swear, I never thought- I never meant to cause you any-”

“Never mind that!” Miss Rosenberg exclaimed, “How are we going to get out?”

William swallowed. He didn’t like where this was going. If this were a novel, he knew, he’d tell her to save herself. These men, whoever they were, were only after him. But the thought of going back to the cells, to slowly starve and face whatever monstrous experiments had led to his present state of being once again, was horror.

“Do the windows open?” he asked instead, crossing over to check. They did, but the walls were too smooth, plaster cool under his fingers, and he knew he’d never be able to make the climb down. Across the quadrangle, a door swung open and a flood of people swarmed out, their panic visible even from this distance. “Miss Rosenberg!”

“I’m trying!” she called back, tugging fruitlessly at the doorknob. “Did you lock this?”

“What- No, how could I?” William ran both hands over his hair, wishing it still stood up enough to be tugged at, “I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us!” Miss Rosenberg swallowed. “Ok. You can fight, can’t you?”

“What- Yes. Well, I mean, I seem to be able to – I couldn’t before.”

Miss Rosenberg gave a hysteric bark of laughter, but sobered quickly. “So, you could help fight them off, right?”

“I- I suppose? I don’t think it would work for long, it was all I could do to get away-”

“Right, then. So…” she glanced around, and then they heard it. The footsteps had stopped. Miss Rosenberg stared over at the door. “Do you think they’ve gone?” she asked, stepping closer and leaning up to look through the peephole.

William swallowed, not sure what to do. If they had gone, it could only be because he hadn’t been their target. Had they dragged off some other poor unfortunate to use in his place, then? He didn’t know, had no way of knowing, but the thought stuck in his throat so that it was almost a relief when the hammer blow came and Miss Rosenberg tumbled forwards, straight into three men carrying some sort of – was it a gun? It was quite unlike the pistols and rifles he had known in London – forcing them to scramble back.

“Hold your fire!” came the call from outside, and William ducked into the shadows behind the door. It was only him they wanted, he reminded himself. Miss Rosenberg would be in no danger, so long as they didn’t see him. If they did- If they did, it would be both of them in the cells, and what way would that be to repay her for the kindness she had shown him?

“Sir, it’s a civilian,” said another voice. “Might have been bitten – we can’t neglect quarantine.”

“No. Maybe she can tell us something. Was there a man in here, before?”

A soft, strangled half-sob, and then: “N-no.”

“We know that you had someone in there.” The voice was quiet, almost unnatural in its civility. “Is he still there now?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking abou-” she broke off with a cry of pain, and the fury that had been building in William since he woke to find himself imprisoned and far from home finally boiled over. The first one went down more easily than he’d been expecting, and hit the wall with a sickening crunch of bone. William snatched up the gun, but didn’t quite dare try to fire it as the second man barrelled into him, hard. William slammed the butt of the weapon into his midsection, but rather than crumpling as the first one had, the man pulled out another of those strange wooden pickets that had had such a devastating effect on Roscoe. William took a sharp step backwards, not noticing the third man until he leapt, pulling a strange-smelling sack over his head and trying to drag William away. No, please, not yet, he hadn’t-

“Bag and tag it, we’re gone,” came one of the voices from before. He sounded breathless, William noticed hazily. How strange, when William wasn’t the least bit out of breath himself, and he should have been, he knew that. He’d read enough adventure stories in his life to know that much. His hands were forced behind him, some sort of strange, smooth cords binding them together. He twisted his hands – it felt oddly flimsy, if he could only break it-

“What about her?” said a second voice, the one that had mentioned quarantine, “She covered for it.”

“No,” the first voice replied, a little too quickly. “Like you said, she’s a civilian. Probably thought she’d be in trouble for having a boy in her room or something,”

“But, sir-” William twisted his wrists again, and heard the snap as the cords fell away. He grinned to himself beneath the bag.

“I said leave her!” the first voice repeated. William held still, his hands starting to shake now, from fear or anger or both, he couldn’t tell.

“If she’s been turned-” the other voice said, and there was a sign.

“All right, we’ll take her with us. The Professor will know what to do with her.” There was a sound like breaking glass, and William took the opportunity to pull off the hood and shove the largest of the three men forwards as hard as he could – and the exhilaration was back again with a vengeance, bubbling under his skin, lending him the strength he needed. The other two were on him in minutes, and William lashed out, throwing one of them across the room and turning to do the same to his companion, but then there was a loud clang and William looked around, to see Miss Rosenberg holding a large, red, metallic-looking something as the man crumpled.

“Thank you,” he said, still not breathless despite that violent burst of activity, and Miss Rosenberg smiled at him, before her face fell.

“Behind you!”

And then it was nothing but chaos – these men seemed to recover almost too fast to be believed, even William’s clumsy schoolboy boxing should have been more effective than this, but still they kept on coming. Until – William was on the other side of the corridor, dealing with two of them while another went for Miss Rosenberg. All he heard was:

“-contain this!” and then a brilliant flash of light and sparks and heat, and another person joined the fight. Miss Rosenberg was nowhere to be seen as the small figure – another woman, William thought, or a very small man – twisted and rolled and pummelled the soldier who had gone for Miss Rosenberg. There was no time to wonder at her skill, however, with two more of them going for William, and now it was quite clear that he was at a disadvantage here. Whatever they had done to him had made him faster, stronger, more resilient than he had been, but he wasn’t a trained fighter, for all the wild joy it sparked now beneath his breastbone. Raw strength he had in abundance, but strength was nothing to skill. He pulled away, desperate now, and picked up the fallen canister, throwing it at the nearer of his two attackers and wondering whether there might still be time to-

A hand closed around his collar, pulling him out of the fight, and he struggled for a second before recognising that mop of red hair

“I- Miss Rosenberg?” he started, staring at her, but she pressed a hand over his mouth, pushing him up against the door.

“They’ll stop if they can’t find you,” she whispered. “Buffy’s keeping them busy. But they’ll be here all night if they think you’re still here.”

“I- I should go, then,” William said, the moment she took her palm away. “If they’re looking for me-”

“No!” Miss Rosenberg shook her head. “No. You- This, the way you’ve been behaving, what’s happened to you…she’ll want to know about that. I mean, you’re so different-”

“I don’t understand,” William said, and he should have felt breathless, but somehow he didn’t. “I- I hardly see how we could have met before now.”

Miss Rosenberg looked stricken, but before she could say anything the shout came from the corridor.

“Abort!”

There was an odd, clicking, beeping sort of sound – like a horn, but with a strange, tinny quality – and the lights came back on, almost blinding after so long in the dark. Miss Rosenberg breathed in deeply, half-collapsing against the door, and William did the same, overwhelmed by relief.

“I don’t understand,” he repeated muzzily, “I- I thought they were hunting me.” He shook his head. “Although why they should choose me specifically – there must be a hundred people in this country who would have been easier to get hold of…” He could not for the life of him comprehend what it was that had so appealed to these people in an impoverished comic author and would-be poet who had been dead for almost a century…dead…he was dead…his mother must be dead also. And Cecily, and all her rich, obnoxious friends, and though he had never cared for any of Cecily’s set except herself, he had never wished them dead, not seriously (although he had enjoyed the occasional guilty fantasy about railroad spikes after Marlborough had repeated that old jibe for the hundredth time, as if repetition would make it any more entertaining). His knees buckled, and he had to catch himself to keep his footing.

“Are you all right?” Miss Rosenberg repeated, frowning at him. William shook his head, mind still whirling. Everyone was dead. He couldn’t grasp it. He tried to go for something smaller – Queen Victoria was dead, he thought. No reaction. The Queen was too much a fixture of life, of society, of his world as he had known it, for the idea of her death to make any sense to him. His mother was dead. No reaction. She had been so close to death already, after all. And then, he thought of a beggar he’d seen in the street two days before the party, and felt a sudden pang. Other faces followed – Martha Mary, their maid-of-all-work; his uncle Thomas, who had paid for him to be sent first to Rugby and then to Cambridge; the old woman, blind in one eye, who sold roasted chestnuts on the street outside the house. They were all gone now. He was the only one left. He swallowed, not quite able to process it, and looked up as the door swung open only to be caught off-guard by a blow that sent him sprawling.

“What are you doing here, Spike? Five words or less.”

William blinked up, slightly dazed, at the fair-haired slip of a girl in the pink coat, wondering how exactly he had managed to become formidable enough in a fight to survive what had just happened, and yet still with such a glass jaw that even this waifish-looking creature could floor him.

“I…What?” he babbled, staring at her, knowing that he was wearing that expression of gormless incomprehension that Cecily had so mocked again, but too dazed still to really care.

“Buffy!” Miss Rosenberg interrupted, stepping between them. “I- I think we should listen to him.”

“Are you crazy? You remember what he pulled last time.”

William rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Miss Summers?” he tried. “I think you may have misunderstood the situation-”

“Cut the crap, Spike,” Miss Summers – for surely ‘Buffy’ could not be a common nickname, even in this strange new century – said flatly, and frowned at him. “And what’s with your voice.”

“My-?”

“You heard me! You’ve gone from talking like that guy in that musical my mom likes – the one about the orphan – with the dog, the one who beat his girlfriend to death-”

“Bill Sikes,” Miss Rosenberg put in.

Miss Summers nodded. “Yeah, him – to talking like the upstairs half of _Upstairs, Downstairs_. What the hell is going on here?”

William blinked up at her again, confused beyond words. “Have you- Is it possible you have mistaken my identity, Miss Summers?” he tried. “Do we- Are you suggesting that we are acquainted?” He could hardly believe, looking at her, that that was possible – he had certainly never associated with anyone like her in London. Now, Miss Summers looked angry, and with a start William realised who she must be. Well, that certainly explained how she had been able to knock him down so easily, for all that she was a tiny thing. But if she hated him so much as she seemed to now, why had she come to his aid during the fight in the corridor, and how had such a slight creature as she been able to fight off armed soldiers with such ease? “Please, don’t think I’m ungrateful for what you did out there,” he said, “It was very- very brave of you, but I really do not remember ever having been introduced to you before.” He essayed a smile. “I should say – thank you. Whatever your reasons may have been, your intervention out there may have saved my life.”

Miss Summers raised her eyebrows at him, “Funny choice of words there, Spike.”

“Do you know,” William said, more irritably than he would have dared in London, pulling himself up until he was kneeling, only to stop before he could stand as Miss Summers produced another of those strange wooden spikes that seemed to be so popular here in the colonies. “That is, I think, the fourth time this evening that someone has called me that, and I have no notion of why that might be. My name is William. William Pratt.” He actually did wince this time, waiting for the first barb, but it didn’t come.

Miss Summers’ hand closed in his shirt, and he struggled in vain as she lifted him by the scruff of the neck, not quite able to believe the evidence of his own eyes. “What’s your play here, Spike?” she demanded. “Small words, or I might change my mind about the whole not staking you thing.”

“Buffy,” Miss Rosenberg said cautiously, “I- I don’t think there is one.”

Miss Summers stared at her. “You seriously expect me to trust him after what he did?”

“No! Not necessarily…but it couldn’t hurt to just hear him out, could it?” Miss Rosenberg swallowed. “He didn’t try to bite me when he first came in here, and he could’ve done it. A-and he only attacked those guys after one of them hit me.”

“Why would I try to bite you?” William asked, frowning, eyeing the picket in Miss Summers’ hand with some trepidation. “Miss Summers, grateful as I may be for your assistance, I would rather you didn’t manhandle me, if that is _quite_ all right with you.” His mother would have been appalled at the rudeness of his waspish tone, but the longer this absurdity continued, the harder it became to keep his temper in check.

Miss Summers stared at him. “Ok, Spike…or William or whatever it is you’re calling yourself now...what do you know about the vampires?”

“Vampires,” William repeated, thrown. “Er…you mean like Lord Ruthven? Varney? Carmilla?” he gave her an incredulous look, “You seem rather old to still believe in such fancies, Miss Summers.”

Miss Summers dropped him. “Shit,” she muttered, “All right, I don’t know what you’re playing at, Spike, but Giles will probably have some idea. Come on.”

William got to his feet, still eyeing her warily as she turned to go. “Is- is she altogether right in the head?” he asked Miss Rosenberg in a low voice.

“What- You mean Buffy? Yeah, she’s just-” she huffed out a breath, “We don’t exactly have much reason to trust you right now.”

William stared at her. “And what indication have I ever given that I would lie to you?” he demanded. Miss Rosenberg’s face was a picture at that, and had he not known better William would have thought she was only barely restraining herself from laughter.

The walk from the university into town was blessedly quiet – indeed, a number of men on the streets simply saw Miss Summers coming and ran the other way. William’s hands itched for a pen and paper, for certainly the editors of _Punch_ would find this whole episode immensely entertaining. Then he remembered that _Punch_ had in all probability long since gone out of publication, and the urge died. The way Miss Summers’ hand had disappeared into her coat, where he knew she was holding another of those spikes, did not help. He wondered vaguely what it was about those weapons that made them so devastatingly effective, or whether – though his mind revolted at the thought – it was just an effect of his reanimated situation. He thought of Victor Frankenstein and his creature again, and couldn’t restrain a shudder. And why had Miss Summers mentioned _vampires_ , of all the absurd things? He couldn’t- They had given him blood in the cell, but that didn’t mean anything. And if he had been a vampire and Roscoe had been so too, why had he died so easily? None of the few books William had read about vampires had agreed on how they could be killed, but none of them had described it as being that easy. Varney had eventually thrown himself into Mount Vesuvius, and Carmilla had needed to be impaled, decapitated, burned and her ashes thrown into a river before she was considered truly dead. And anyway, he was quite certain the process of being turned into a vampire should not involve brightly-lit laboratories or men in white coats.

“All right, here we are,” Miss Summers said, stopping outside a large townhouse, almost as fine as Cecily’s. It looked vaguely Spanish, making William think that this must be one of Spain’s former colonies in the Americas, although that hardly narrowed things down. William’s heart sank. He had not considered, with Miss Rosenberg and Miss Summers, that they might be well-to-do. But then, such eccentricities as they displayed had been tolerated only in the very rich in his day, and he could not imagine that had changed so very much in scarcely more than a century. He felt more like a poor relation than ever in the face of it. He glanced down at his rather shabby workman’s clothes, and wished he’d had time to change and, for that matter, something to change into.

They hustled him through what looked like a small courtyard garden to a metal door, which Miss Summers hammered at, casting frequent suspicious looks at William, who found himself endeavouring to look as harmless as humanly possible in response. Wasted effort, probably – William didn’t know anyone less menacing than he was. Even Martha Mary, who was only sixteen and a skinny little wisp of a thing anyway, was more likely to look dangerous than he was.

The door swung open, revealing a weathered-looking older man with glasses and a tired, harried look about him, which faded rapidly at the sight of William to be replaced by something close to menace. Before he could speak, however, Miss Summers interjected:

“Giles, it’s about Spike.”

The man’s eyes flicked to William again. “I can see that,” he said testily, “Is there any reason you haven’t staked him yet?”

“He saved me from those soldier guys,” Miss Rosenberg said nervously, “And- and he doesn’t seem to remember…well, anything.”

This, William felt, was a bit unfair. “I woke up in a cell earlier tonight to find that I have apparently been dead for more than a century,” he explained, at the man’s incredulous look, hoping he wasn’t just condemning himself to a lifetime in the local equivalent of Bedlam.  “I- I had hoped to arrange transport back to London, but…” he spread his hands helplessly in front of him, but before he could complete the movement Miss Summers had that wooden…well, stake, William supposed…out again and directed at him. He eyed her warily, wondering whether Miss Rosenberg’s assessment of her sanity had been altogether correct.

The man – Giles, Miss Summers had called him, though William couldn’t guess whether that was forename or surname – did not look any less incredulous at that.

“Giles,” Miss Summers said, more quietly, “Willow thinks he’s telling the truth. And he isn’t- He doesn’t _feel_ like a vampire any more. Not the way he did, I mean.”

A horrible cold certainty settled in William’s chest. All but one of these people had spoken of killing him – spoken of it casually, as though killing him were more commonplace than not doing so could be. They would kill him, if it suited them, with no greater concern than how they would dispose of his body once they were done. It was a horrifying thought, and he wondered desperately whether it was not too late to run and find some other help in this strange country, this strange century, this strange _world_. But then Mr Giles was nodding and stepping back.

“Come in, then,” he said, still watching William the way a bird might watch a cat. William essayed a nervous smile, which only made Mr Giles seem more suspicious. He stepped inside, wondering whether it was paranoid of him to feel as though he knew now how a chicken might feel upon the block. Inside, Mr Giles’ rooms were far less strange to William in some ways than anything he had seen of this century so far. It was almost dizzying, to see the mixture of things that could almost have been familiar and the strangeness of this new place, worse even than the laboratory had been, for everything else he had seen had been universally strange, rather than trying to mimic anything he knew. Mr Giles offered the ladies coffee, which they accepted, but hesitated to make the same offer to William. He smiled, wishing he were braver.

“I- I hate to trouble you,” he said, “But a cup of tea wouldn’t come amiss. It has been rather a trying day.”

Next to him, Miss Summers snorted. It was a very Cecily-like noise, and for a moment William’s mind conjured up a disconcertingly vivid image of what it might be like to tear Miss Summers’ throat out, making him flinch despite the odd, vicious satisfaction of the idea. Mr Giles gave her a disapproving look for a moment, before returning his gaze to William.

“You say that he has no idea that he’s a vampire?”

“That’s what Spike says,” Miss Summers agreed. “He’s been being all…” she waved a hand in William’s direction, “Nice. It’s weird.”

“He really does seem to believe it,” Miss Rosenberg put in, eyes wide.

William sighed. “‘He’ objects to being discussed as though he were a piece of furniture and not a thinking being,” he said, more sharply than he would have dared a few days ago. “And- Forgive me, sir, but…vampires? You- Is this some kind of joke?”

Mr Giles’ lips twitched mirthlessly. “I’m afraid not,” he said.

“Then what on earth gave you the idea that I might be one? I hate to disappoint you, but anyone less- I come over faint at the _sight_ of blood, how could I possibly be expected to _drink_ it?”

That was, apparently, too much for Miss Summers, and she broke down in laughter. Miss Rosenberg too seemed to be barely holding back her own laughter, and even Mr Giles’ mouth twisted with amusement at that.

“I’m afraid it’s quite true,” he said, “Willow, there’s a mirror in the other room-”

“No need,” Miss Summers managed through her snickers, and produced a compact like a very thin powder puff out of her pocket and open it to reveal- It was probably a mirror. It showed Mr Giles and the wall behind them quite clearly. But there was no sign of William.

He flinched back, horrified. “How- How is this possible?” he demanded, his voice shaking.

“You’re a vampire,” Miss Summers repeated. “What’s to get? You got bitten, back in…when was it?” this last to Mr Giles.

Mr Giles shrugged. “It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact date for Spike’s transformation. The Council’s records barely agree on the identity of his sire.”

William was many things but, whatever Cecily and Marlborough and all the rest of that coterie of rich, spoilt imbeciles who had never known a day’s work in their lives might have said, he didn’t think he was a fool. “By ‘sire’ I presume you mean the vampire who would, hypothetically, have effected this transformation,” he said. “If I am to take you at your word that such a thing has happened.”

“Hey,” Miss Rosenberg said, reaching over to catch his arm. “It’s difficult for us too, you know. We’ve only ever known you as Spike the vampire – I mean, you still _look_ like Spike the vampire.”

The thought that he had regularly gone about wearing this much pomade by choice was almost harder for William to believe than the vampirism, and he had to fight back a quite uncharacteristic urge to snap at the girl. One look at Miss Rosenberg’s face saw that urge dissipating, however.

“I’m sorry,” he said, still not as composed as he would have preferred. “I didn’t mean to insult your friends’ integrity.” Miss Summers made another odd, choked noise at that, making William’s face burn with humiliation. “I- You knew me, then? And…am I so very different?”

“Yeah,” Miss Summers said baldly, “Kind of a lot.”

William swallowed. “I…I suppose that is to be expected,” he said hollowly. “Vampires are soulless, I believe? Or- That is what most of the literature has said on the subject.” A terrible thought struck him. “Does that mean…surely…if I’m here with you, like this, surely that means I have a soul, doesn’t it?” He swallowed.

Mr Giles was polishing his glasses. “Not necessarily. We have, um, encountered souled vampires before – one particular souled vampire – but there did not seem to be any, ah, any trace of the original identity left in that particular instance.”

“How could you tell?” William asked, frowning. “How old a vampire was he that you could tell?”

“We had extensive records of the vampire’s early life,” Mr Giles said, smiling ruefully, “And of his later, ah, exploits. Angelus made no secret of his past. You, on the other hand…” he shook his head. “Most of the records of Spike’s – of your, I should say – early life were destroyed by Spike himself. The Council has been interested for some time in recovering those records.”

“I- I will be more than happy to offer any information they need,” William said awkwardly. It seemed the least he could offer in exchange for- What could he ask of these people? He had no money, no records, no understanding of this strange new world into which he had been thrust, and yet the thought of being so dependent on them was horror. “But- May I ask what it was that possessed me to start calling myself ‘Spike’, if you know anything about it?”

Mr Giles brightened. “Ah, that I can tell you. It was quite early in your career, but you- he- first became infamous due to his unorthodox use of railway spikes in dispatching his victims.”

William froze, forcing his face to careful blankness even as his gorge rose in his throat. So, Marlborough had got his wish, a vindictive part of him thought, and God in Heaven, what was wrong with him that the thought brought a rush of satisfaction as much as horror?

Miss Summers’ eyes were on him now. “So,” she asked, an edge to her voice now, “Sound familiar.” William swallowed again. “There’s- ah, there’s no avoiding it, I suppose,” he muttered shamefully. “It was a joke. That pompous ass Marlborough- He kept saying that he’d rather have a railroad spike driven through his head than listen to my poetry.”

“ _Poetry_?” Miss Summers repeated, incredulous. “You write poetry? _You_?”

William grimaced. “I’m afraid so. Not very good poetry, you understand. I was still trying to get it published between the comic nonsense I wrote to pay for Mother’s medicine.”

“You were still living with your mother?” Miss Summers asked, in a tone of flat contempt.

William gave her a long, cool look. “I could hardly leave her,” he pointed out, “There was no money for a hired nurse, and consumption is- it’s a terrible way to die.” She would have died alone, he thought now. She would have died alone, because he was dead, and the thing that had walked the earth after him…would it have still loved her? Had it even known when she died? He shook his head, and tried to turn his mind to, if not happier things, at least less painful ones. “‘Spike’,” he repeated. “Apparently death did not improve my gifts for language. ‘William the Bloody’ was better than that.”

Miss Rosenberg and Mr Giles exchanged an eloquent look, before Miss Rosenberg said: “They called you that before you were a vampire?”

William’s mouth twitched, “Another of Marlborough’s little jokes. We went to school together, and, well, calling me ‘William the Bloody Awful Poet’ was apparently something of a mouthful, not to mention liable to earn him a caning if any of the masters heard.”

“Huh,” Miss Summers said, rocking back on her heels. “Suddenly that nickname got a lot less menacing.”

William’s nodded, carefully avoiding her eyes. He didn’t want to know what it was that they proposed to do with him – send him to the workhouse, perhaps, now that they knew he could be no threat to them, or else kill him outright. Who would notice, after all, when he was supposed to have been dead for more than a century?

“We can’t just let him go,” Miss Rosenberg said, a little nervously. “Not like this. I mean…I don’t like Spike, but he seems…ok. Sort of human. Do you think he’s been souled?”

“It’s certainly worth looking into,” Mr Giles agreed. “We should keep…William…here – under guard, of course – until we have answers.”

“No turning him loose and letting something nasty get him?” Miss Summers said, but it sounded half-hearted to William. Granted, that may have just been wishful thinking.

“I _am_ still here,” William reminded them, more than a little alarmed now. “And I’d rather not have my future decided for me as if-”

“Shut up,” Miss Summers said shortly. “We’re not going to kill you. Unless this is a trick, then we’ll definitely kill you.”

“How very reassuring,” William muttered.

“But,” Miss Summers went on, “We’re not giving you back to those creepy military guys either. Which, if you’ve really been souled again, makes this the safest place in Sunnydale.”


End file.
